Low maintenance, low cost and spectrally selective sources of coherent light of short to mid-infrared wavelengths have potential applications including trace gas spectroscopy, process control, environmental safety monitoring, real-time breath analysis, telecommunications and the testing of infrared countermeasure systems. Regrettably, practical sources having these characteristics are generally not available. The commercially available solid state lasers at these wavelengths generally use non-linear wavelength conversion because there are few practical laser materials that provide these wavelengths. Wavelength conversion is generally inefficient, complex and expensive. The commercially available quantum cascade diode lasers that may generate these wavelengths are generally prohibitively expensive, require generally inconvenient evacuated enclosures, and have inferior spectral and spatial mode quality.